Ice Cream at Rite Aid [moved from Los Angeles board]
OK, what's up? Relatively new to LA, and see that Rite Aid has ice cream. Little kids eating it all the time. Didn't think too much of it until some surfer guy at a dinner party (very native) tells me that this is the BEST ice cream in LA.
This just does not compute--wouldn't happen in NY. Rite Aid: Not where you go for ice cream. But here, it's LA, parallel universe metropolis: Ice cream at Rite Aid. Some kind of old LA tradition I think he said? Was he lying?
George
Aug 21, 2006 02:11AM
it is ok ice cream.
it tastes a lot better if you grew up eating it, so you associate it with the carefree days of childhood.
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yeah, exactly. this used to be thrifty's ice cream and i used to go to a church near one so I would sneak over and use my church offering on ice cream instead. sometimes pizza. may the Lord forgive me.
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Out here, Rite Aid used to be named Thrifty's. There is quite a following for Thrifty's ice cream, but I sure wouldn't call it the BEST ice cream in L.A.!
Maybe it's the cylindrical shooter gun that's got him all worked up... "Dude, it's shaped like a tube!"
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it's been a long time since i had their ice cream - it is very ...airy....i remember buying a 1/2 gallon brought it home, the gf bought a 1/2 gallon of dreyers - the dreyers ice cream weighed about twice as much as the rite aid ...not that weight makes an ice cream but alot of air doesn't help.
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The pistachio-cashew sure tasted good when it was a nickel a scoop. I know, dating myself again. Yes, it's a nostalgia thing, but at 99 cents a cone, it's still a pretty good deal.
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Ah yes- I remember the 5/10/15 cent days; I think well into the mid-80's, a triple scoop was still 25 cents. I wonder if they still have that cylindrical shaped scoop that fit perfectly on top of the cone?
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i was there recently for that one malted chocolate crunch flavor and they still did the tube scoop of my childhood.
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Ahh the good old days ... when you had to agonize over a game of Millipede versus a triple-scoop of ice cream (Chocolate Chip, Pistacho Nut and Chocolate Crunch).
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yup, it's thrifty's ice cream, so don't equate it to rite aid somewhere else in the country. It's much better than something like that. When rite aid bought out thrifty's they kept the ice cream... good choice.
I grew up on thrifty's. It was one of the only places we would go for anything like that. loved it. When I go back to california to visit family, we always go there. Now I take my kids there.
If I wanted totally gourmet, I'd probably go elsewhere. But I got to say, I love it. Plus, where else can you get chocolate malted crunch???
oh, and yes, they still do the cylindrical cone...
It's great ice cream like, in my opinion, In-N-Out is great hamburgers. You can get a fancier hamburger, definitely. But the pleasure of the experience is hard to match. Same thing with thrifty's in my mind...
you need to go and try it out a few times. It's still pretty cheap, so no loss there and you can experience an old california tradition. Plus, the one in huntington beach has a great butcher store right next to it (good beef selection btw) that has big plastic cows out front, so the kids can sit on the cows while they eat their cones. Now that is a real family tradition...
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I am so excited. I grew up in SFSprings and always went to the Norwalk Thrifty's for double chocolate malted crunch! I have thought about it for years since I moved to utah to raise a family. Do you know if they still sell it in the 1/2 gallon boxes? if so I am gonna have some friends send me some via frozen mail. I have told my kids about it and since Rite Aid bought out Thrifty's I figured the ice cream was long gone. Thanx to you all for informing me otherwise.
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Yes.
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I love it! So good, that chocolate malted crunch. Yeah, it's sort of like the Wendy's of ice cream. Not the best in town, but when you eat it, it reminds you of being a kid again. And where else in town can you pick up deoderant and a cone?
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Thifty Mint Chocolate Chip and Cookies'n'Cream.
If you are truly a Thrify ice cream fan, not necessarily for just nostalgia sake, Ralph's Private Selection brand tastes just the same.
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If I'm craving a simple scoop of unadulterated Cookies n' Cream on any given night, Rite Aid is the answer.
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Wow, I had assumed that this disappeared ages ago. Rite Aid stores up here in the Seattle area don't have it (they used to be Payless Drug though.) Although I spent most of my childhood in what was basically the middle of nowhere, I remember the Thrifty ice cream from visits to my Grandma's house in Arizona. I don't know how widespread it is nowdays, but I might have to seek it out next time I'm down there.
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On a quality/price ratio, the Rite-Aid (aka Thrifty's) ice cream is VERY VERY good.
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Agreed! Especially the above mentioned Cookies and Cream! :)
--Dommy!
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Last month they had the ice cream boxes (I think a half gallon) of all the best flavors for $1.99. How can you beat that! I love the chocolate malted crunch too. Great ice cream for homemade ice cream cakes too!
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A childhood favorite was always Apricot-Mango Thrifty's sherbert made into a float with lemon-lime soda (Sprite was the best). Delicious!
Ah, how I miss the good ol' days of the '80s when 50 cents would buy you and your closest friend each a double tube scoop...
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Payless Drugs was sold to Thrifty Drugs in the late 80's or early 90's. It was then that ice cream freezer cases and single serve scoop counters were installed in Payless Drugs under the Thrifty label.
Thrifty was then bought out by the east coast-based Rite Aid, a large chain of pharmacies.
Rite Aid had many difficulties, reorganized, and remain more or less in the PayLess/Thrifty format on the west coast. New Rite Aids are developed more on the east coast form, being a pharmacy with standard mini-mart type products, but without the breadth of a Thrifty or Payless. ( so no ice cream)
Ice Cream is available in larger (old Payless or Thrity)stores, though Rite Aid is not committed to maintaining the equipment very well. Our local Rite Aids that have old freezer cases are always in state of disrepair. Parts may be hard to get--they are at least 40 or 50 years old!
Yes, I too remember the 25 cent scoops. My favorite today is fudge brownie or rocky road. Tons 'o nuts!
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Yes, I remember the cone at 50 cents was the best deal in the world. Cocolate with nuts, even the chocolate malt crunch, and the pistachio. Haven't had them in years, but even double the price is still a steal. Wish I was close enough to have one now.
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Ah! I loved Thrifty's (now RiteAid) ice cream when I was growing up! Mostly because it's a square scoop, as opposed to a round one.
I like the Rocky Road.
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Man, I feel old...I remember when a quarter got you FIVE scoops at Thrifty! Not great ice cream, but still pretty good, especially for a nickel a scoop! I think the quality of the ingredients must have been pretty high, because the ice cream tasted good, but Thrifty kept costs down by having a TON of air whipped into it (the quantity of air in ice cream is called 'overrun').
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They have some great seasonal flavors. My memories go way back to childhood. I always crack a smile when I see the kids trying to lick faster than their cone can melt. The one across the road from me is located 2 doors from a Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors. Guess where the moms are taking their kiddles? I also crack up when I see nicely dressed ladies in the middle of the afternoon walking out with a piled high cone for their personal treat.
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My wife grew up here in Pasadena, CA, and had forgotten about the ice cream at Rite-Aid until she was in one a year or so ago. They're about our least favorite drugstores, with that confusing diagonal layout and a total store staff of maybe three, including the fat teenage manager who gets stuck filling ice-cream orders, which he does with open annoyance. BUT...the ice cream is worth putting up with all of it, especially at the price. It's not as good as Fosselman's, the very best local maker in our opinion, but it's just down the block instead of down in Alhambra.
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As far as I know, the ice cream that they served at Thrifty's was simply Carnation ice cream. IMHO, the Cocolate Malted Crunch was to die for. The other flavors were nothing special. For the most part, not the best ice cream in LA, but without a doubt it used to be the most bang for your buck in LA ice cream. Not sure what they charge for it these days, but back in my youth it was like 30 cents for a single cone, in a time when the only people who could remember when you could get an ice cream cone for 30 cents most places were tripple my age.
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I believe it's around a dollar for a scoop - Mrs. O always buys when we do that, and my memory's lousy, but it strikes me that's what it is. Remembering as I do the times when a scoop of ice cream was one of the many things you could always get for a nickel, it seems odd to regard $1 as being dirt cheap...
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Thrifty made/makes their own ice cream. I'm with you on the Malted Crunch.
The Carnation ice cream was sold for a while at Savons, a competing chain.
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Yeah, I was shocked to see that the Rite Aids (originally Thrifty's, then Lucky's for a fleeting period) didn't sell ice cream out on the east coast upon first moving here. I asked, and just got looks. Said I was from LA and... got looks. Whaaat?
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rite aid is pretty damn cheap, and pretty good icecream. i agree with it being not the BEST, but quite good.
and nobody's mentioned cotton candy?! it's by far my favorite icecream haha
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Heard Rite Aid is going out of business... what will happen to our beloved Thrifty's ice cream? Especially black cherry or rainbow sherbet... sniff.
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I wonder how many quarts of Double Chocolate Malted Crunch I can stash in the extra freezer. That is so sad!
At least there is now a Golden Spoon at that Ralph's on Carson Street.
PS, Red Mango down the street near the golf course is having free yogurt this Friday from noon to 8 pm.
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Thanx for the tip! Red Mango is yummy. That Golden Spoon is still a little rough around the edges. I'll give it a couple months.
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If anyone is following this thread, today when I went to Rite Aid they had Peppermint Stick. It tastes EXACTLY how I remember Howard Johnson's candy cane or peppermint stick from the 1960s, except maybe not as many bits of candy as I remember.
I don't think this is a regular flavor. Didn't see it in the retail case and I don't recall every seeing it before.
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The deal with Thrifiy's ice cream is that it's made with butter cream instead of regular cream. This makes the ice cream very velvety and smooth, and makes it seem allot lighter (although it will still make you fat if you eat too much!!!) While it's not absolutely the best or very gourmet, it is still very good, and has a very unique texture to it, which makes if very memorable (especially for those of us that grew up on it.)
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I don't recall ever reading the term "butter cream" on a carton of Thrifty's. Exactly what is that?
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If you have ever melted butter and then let it cool you will notice that it separates into a creamy-white more solid substance and a more clear yellow substance. The white substance is the actual dairy part of butter while the clear part is essentially like oil. Both of these substances are present in normal butter. There are different terms for the process of removing the oily part of butter from the dairy part, but I forget what it's called right now. At any rate, instead of just using regular cream they separate out the "butter cream" and use it as well. I have heard this substance called many names but have forgotten all of them but butter cream. While this doesn't affect the process for making ice cream, except for the additional step of separating the butter, it does make the ice cream have a different texture and taste. If you've had Thrifty's ice cream it seems to be very light and fluffy, while at the same time it also seems very rich. Some other companies use butter cream instead of or in addition to regular cream, but then they call it "gourmet" and charge you an arm and a leg for it. I remember Thrifty's ice cream advertised that it was made with butter cream for a while, but using butter cream makes the ice cream higher in fat content, so they have probably stopped. Sorry for forgetting the technical terms. I'll update if I remember them.
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I read the whole post, and was thrilled as I have a Rite Aid in the neighborhood...made a special trip....NOTHING BUT BEN & JERRYS....! I'm bummed....
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Are you on the west coast? Usually the old, larger stores have them.
When I worked for an unnamed city in the 1980's we (jokingly) told the company that they could build a new Thrifty only if they included the ice cream counter. They were not going into all stores at that time. They took us seriously.
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The ice cream is very good. I hated the coconut pineapple flavor that was my mom's favorite when i was a kid, but that was because i was very young and wanted nothing but chocolate and more chocolate. =]
now that i'm older though, i love the coconut pineapple flavor. my sister and a lot of other people tell me that only old asian ladies like that flavor. lol i'm a 17 year old high school senior!
go eat the ice cream and decide for yourself if you like it. i was too young to remember the low prices or the special texture or even flavor, but even in the present days i love it!!
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I just move to NY from L.A and i can't believe that Rite Aid does not sell thrifty ice cream!! I'm totally craving chocolate brownie and they totally have the best cookies and cream. Back in L.A i had it at least once a week. That's one of many things that i'll miss from Rite Aid in L.A.
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